i've never felt power like this before superhero
movies and comics like x-men and spider-man have captured the fantasy of being superhuman many
cultures throughout history believe that certain people possess special powers or abilities that
transform them into superior beings shifting our focus to the present day many people strive for
exceptional performance some go as far as taking performance-enhancing drugs engaging in obsessive
behavior or simply attempting to improve upon their natural abilities through focused practice
in the world of sports some athletes have been able to push the limits of what is possible
with superhuman levels of athleticism and speed all human beings are 99.9 identical in their
genetic makeup differences in the remaining 0.1 hold important clues about our individuality
strengths and weaknesses that make each of us unique in the last decade new technologies
have considerably improved scientists ability to locate the genetic variations that distinguish our
dna from that of other people in some instances these genetic differences give rise to diverse
superhuman abilities there is growing interest in identifying genes associated with special
abilities many of which seem to be inherited dr george church is a harvard professor and
geneticist who is putting together a list of genetic mutations and alteration possibilities
that could lead to superhuman abilities we have some examples myostatin gene there's
lrp5 alleles which can make your bones much much stronger than everybody else on the planet
so rather osteoporosis it's kind of the other end of the spectrum and they're so strong that
they can have uh issues with uh surgery pcsk9 is something that that shows that the lower your
ldl cholesterol the better off you are in terms of coronary disease and and to some people's
surprise maybe as low as zero is is tolerable and advantageous as a society we are attracted
to the idea of having extraordinary abilities but there are people who we rarely hear about and
whose abilities are extraordinary as a result of combination of genetics training and other forms
of adaptation granted their superpowers don't include anything like the x-men or their avengers
counterparts but nevertheless they are special so let's look at some real-life examples
of people with superhuman abilities while scientists can't explain why hulk's
pants stay on when everything else shreds off they do seem to have identified
genes responsible for incredible strength mstn when this gene is expressed in a normal
person the individual has incredibly strong muscles and can lift objects that would
otherwise be beyond their reach mstn gene provides instructions for making a protein
called myostatin eddie hall who won the world's strongest man 2017 competition has a
genetic mutation that causes myostatin-related muscle hypertrophy this condition certainly
contributed to his large muscle mass people from the bajo tribe often referred to
as sea nomads can hold their breath underwater for as long as 13 minutes at depths of around
200 feet scientists studying them showed that the breath-holding ability of the baudu is a
genetic adaptation caused by natural selection they have developed bigger spleens that
allow them to store oxygenated blood which increases their endurance at depth dutch extreme athlete vim hoff is on the list not
because of his genes but of his skills his talent to endure cold has been studied by scientists and
seems to be a result of his ability to voluntarily influence his autonomic nervous system something
which was thought impossible he got the nickname the iceman by breaking a number of records
related to cold exposure including climbing mount kilimanjaro in shorts running a half marathon
above the arctic circle barefoot and standing in a container while covered with ice cubes for almost
two hours he is able to increase the release of chemicals in the brain called endocannabinoids
which create a sensation of euphoria to help numb the pain of the cold according to him over
time we as humans have developed a different attitude towards nature and we've forgotten about
our inner power this is the ability of our body to adapt to extreme temperature and
survive within our natural environment we have hundred thousand kilometers of
blood vessels inside very primitive ones like capillaries and they have arteries and you
have veins they are all connected to the heart we all know killer number one was
cardiovascular related diseases in society why because all the cardiovascular related
system and related organs and everything are very bad exercised they contain millions of
little muscles to help the blood flow go through but because we wear clothes all the time
we de-stimulate we have a de-stimulative kind of behavior conditioned so the muscles
don't work as much who's got to pay for that your heart your heart needs to pump more to get
the blood flow through because the tone of the muscles in the vascular system that means millions
of little muscles they are not helping as much so if you go into the cold shower what happens
these little muscles begin to work they begin to be stimulated what happens more [Music]
the heart rate goes down with 20 to 30 beats a minute and thus you get a lot more nutrients
oxygen and vitamins into the cells that means a lot more energy so much more energy and much less
stress that's the result of a cold shower a day consider this a non-competitive relatively
in-shape runner usually completes one mile in about nine to ten minutes while the fastest
man on earth usain bolt set the world record of the 100 meter sprint at 9.58 seconds alt
reached a top speed of 27.33 miles per hour the likelihood of becoming an elite sprint
power athlete like bolt is likely influenced by a handful of genes bolt carries at least
one of the sprint variant of the actn3 gene this gene controls the production
of a protein that is found only in fast twitch fibres which are the muscle
fibers that give sprinters their speed super centralians are people
who have reached the age of 110. research on the morbidity of supercenterians has
found that they remain free of major age-related diseases such as cardiovascular disease
dementia and cancer until the very end of life scientists hope that in the future we can find a
way to delay aging even by a very minor percentage in the population this could have a profound
impact on health and extended life expectancy so how do we get these out from these rare
individuals who happen to be lucky in the world to the rest of us and a huge change uh crispr cast
nine and and other things that that we and others have worked on to that enable us to engineer our
genome so our genes are no longer our destiny they never were but now you can not only change
your environment you can change your genetics and this is done by engineering machines protein
machines protein plus rna that will go in and find the needle in the haystack and your six billion
base pairs in your genome these can go in and find one place to sit down and cleave and destroy that
gene in this case or replace it with something that you like better it has been argued that human
evolution has accelerated since the development of agriculture 10 000 years ago and civilization
some 5000 years ago humans have yet to undergo any major biological changes since then but as
our technology changes we are increasingly using it to change ourselves and the world around us
within 30 years it will probably be possible to make essentially any kind of change to any
kind of genome says professor jennifer dunner of the university of california berkeley
who shared the 2020 nobel prize in chemistry for her role in the development of crispr you can
imagine that in the future we are not subject to the dna we inherit from our parents but we can
actually change our genes in a targeted way anatomically modern human populations continue
to evolve and they are affected by both natural selection and genetic drift thanks to the genomic
revolution researchers are not able to see changes in the human genome as they happen there are
several areas being looked into that could lead to radical change in the human genome opening up a
new area of research and development with further possibilities being realized if we can engineer
them correctly radical change in the genome could enable us to vastly extend our life expectancy
give us superhuman abilities and even transform us into something entirely different however
the ethical legal and moral issues surrounding genetic engineering are significant and we need
to consider all of them before we move forward thanks for watching did you like this video then show your support by subscribing and
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